MH-239 Bigg Jus - Poor People's DayBigg Jus and DJ Gman present Poor People's Day, possibly the most relevant hip-hop record of the year. After working together on the key track from Jus' Black Mamba Serums, the duo conspired to create a release that would pay tribute to the oppressed people of the world and at the same time document what they see as an era of media control and significant global crisis. Bigg Jus fuses the indelible burners of his past with a deep political consciousness, proving himself a true aspirant to the Edutainment title. His art and politics coexist as he couches messages and exhortations in fly rhyme schemes, dropped over bumpin' beats. Those beats are provided by DJ Gman, who is sure to establish himself as one of the top producers in hip-hop with this release. The album destroys the sonic limitations of typical boom-bap and is nothing short of a revelation.

Powerful messages on top of amazing beats is what this album is about - Ghetto Blaster / Built on the imagination and intellect which made Company Flow one of the most farsighted hip-hop acts - Q / This is one of the best albums of 2005 - IGN / The poetry of Jus’ critiques is, in a word, unmatched - Okayplayer

Here is possibly the most confrontational, dense, depressing, and indecipherable rap album of the year—and as a 45-minute exegesis on America as poverty-creation machine, it'd have to be. Bigg Jus, former member of Company Flow and presumable current member of an FBI watch list, is one of the few MCs out there who seem dedicated specifically to decrying the power structure instead of usurping it. It's hard to find any hip-hop analogues that come close—the sometimes-stilted way Jus rattles off flow-defying sociopolitical struggle dispatches is on some D. Boon shit, brainy sloganeering as lyricism and vice versa. Leadoff nonskit cut "Supa Nigga" is the red herring: Sky-bound R&B beats bolted onto a funeral march accompany some vaguely nonspecific badass-geek exhortations ("You need blueprints to construct a Stargate to escape the ass-whippin'"), but the accessibility gets dead-bolted from there on in. "Energy Harvester (Swallow the Sun)" heaves like a nuclear reactor with asthma under Jus' puzzle-box warnings of environmental decay. "This Is Poor People's Day" hiccups with fusion-jazz autism and an endless stream of anti-imperialist agitation straight out of any random issue of Workers' World; "Night Before" merges anarchistic visions of a coup d'état ("That's what happens when you start to feel immortal/The chickens come home and people feel like they need some kind of vindication/To reach out and kill the harbinger of doom") with lonely slow-jam delicacy. As obtuse and frustrating as it can be sometimes for listeners just coming down off a Kanye high, it's still all too necessary. In the meantime, you can curse the fact that this album has to exist while eagerly awaiting the day it sounds completely outmoded. - Seattle Weekly